The remarks of Borlase in his “Antiquities of Cornwall,” come in here very suitably. He says—“Of the fires we kindle in many parts of England, at some stated time of the year, we know not certainly the rise, reason or occasion, but they may probably be reckoned among the relicks of the Druid superstitious fires. In Cornwall, the festival fires called Bonfires, are kindled on the Eve of St. John the Baptist and St. Peter’s Day; and Midsummer is thence, in the Cornish tongue, called ‘Golnan,’ which signifies both light and rejoicing. At these fires the Cornish attend with lighted torches, tarred and pitched at the end, and make their perambulations round their fires, and go from village to village carrying their torches before them, and this is certainly the remains of the Druid superstition, for ‘faces præferre,’ to carry lighted torches, was reckoned a kind of Gentilism, and as such particularly prohibited by the Gallick Councils. They were in the eye of the law ‘accensores facularum,’ and thought to sacrifice to the devil, and to deserve capital punishment.”
Brand mentions a few additional particulars which we here transcribe.
“Torreblanca, in his ‘Demonology,’ has a passage in which he tells us how the ancients were accustomed to pass their children of both sexes through the fire for the sake of securing them a prosperous and fortunate lot, and he adds that the Germans imitated this profane usage in their Midsummer pyres in honour of the anniversary of St. John’s Day.
“Moresin appears to have been of opinion that the custom of leaping over these fires is a vestige of the ordeal, where to be able to pass through fires with safety was held to be an indication of innocence. To strengthen the probability of this conjecture, we may observe that not only the young and vigorous, but even those of grave characters used to leap over them, and there was an interdiction of ecclesiastical authority to deter clergymen from this superstitious instance of agility. A note at the foot of the page says that Mr. Brand saw in the possession of Douce, a French print, entitled ‘L’este le Feu de la St. Jean,’ from the hand of Mariette. In the centre was the fire made of wood piled up very regularly, and having a tree stuck up in the midst of it. Young men and women were represented dancing round it hand in hand. Herbs were stuck in their hats and caps, and garlands of the same surrounded their waists or were slung across their shoulders.
“In the ‘Traite des Superstitions,’ we read ‘Whoever desires to know the colour of his future wife’s hair, has only to walk three times round the fire of St. John, and when the fire is half extinguished he must take a brand, let it go out, and then put it under his pillow, and the next morning he will find encircling it threads of hair of the desired colour.’ But this must be done with the eyes shut. We are further told, where there is a widow or a marriageable girl in a house, it is necessary to be very careful not to remove the brands, as this drives away lovers.
“The third Council of Constantinople, A.D. 680, in its sixty-fifth canon, enacted the following interdiction:—‘Those Bonefires that are kindled by certaine people on New Moones before their shops and houses, over which also they do foolishly leape, by a certaine ancient custome, we command them from henceforth to cease. Whoever, therefore, shall doe any such thing; if he be a clergyman, let him be deposed; if a layman, let him be excommunicated. For, in the Fourth Book of the Kings it is written: And Manasseh built an altar to all the host of heaven, in the two courts of the Lord’s house, and made his children to passe through the Fire, &c.’ Prynne observes upon this: ‘Bonefires, therefore, had their originall from this idolatrous custome, as this Generall Councell hath defined; therefore all Christians should avoid them.’ And the Synodus Francica under Pope Zachary, A.D. 742, inhibits ‘those sacrilegious Fires which they call Nedfri (or Bonefires), and all other observations of the Pagans whatsoever.’”
CHAPTER VII.
Paradise Lost and Moloch—The God of the Ammonites—The slaughter of Children by Fire, notices in the Scriptures—Fire Ceremonies and Moloch—Sacred Fires of the Phœnicians—The Carthaginians—Custom of the Oziese—Sardinian Customs and Moloch—The Cuthites—Persian Fire Worship—The House-Fires of Greece and Rome—Sacred Books of the East—Laws of Manu—The Rig Veda and Hymns to Agni, the God of Fire—Vesta, worship of—The Magi—Zoroaster.